3D rendering program

[eXtremist]

Anyone know of any good 3D programs? I wanna make some cool ray-traced 3D text and models.

[error27]

the thing you use to make the model and the renderrer are normally two seperate programs.

Some people like blender. I was not familiar with 3d stuff when I first tried it and I couldn't figure out anything. It's free as in beer but not free as in gpl.

I'm still not really familiar with 3d stuff but I've been playing around with the stuff from k-3d.org. It's super easy to learn. And quite cool... It's a gpl program to boot.

For renderring k3-d stuff you can use blue moon rendering tools. That's free as in beer.

The background on my desktop was renderred with povray, a gpl render. It doesn't render k-3d stuff though. I'm not sure how the person created the image.

Summary... I don't know very much about 3d but I had a lot of fun poking around with k-3d.

[Strike]

povray is NOT GPLed - http://www.povray.org/privacy.html

[Jomboni]

But still, nobody should complain when free beer abounds.

[Siskmarek]

Blender is probably your best bet. Yes, the interface is kinda confusing.. well.. yeah, it IS confusing, but laying down 40 bucks for the manual I hear is WELL worth it. It's really geared towards game making but I've seen some pretty photoreal renderings with the sucker too. And it has radiosity! w00t! You need an expensive plugin for 3D Studio Max to even be able to get radiosity. So for overall price you definitely get your bang for a buck.

There should be plenty of user sites around, too, that can at least teach you the basics of Blender, like navigation, basic modelling and texturing, rendering, etc. But again.. go for the book. The book is wonderful. The book is God! Bow before your new God! ^_^

And Murry Xmas! :D

~ Siskie

[error27]

crap... sorry. I thought that povray was gpl but you are right.

k-3d is gpl though and it's really cool.

[error27]

I guess I thought povray was gpl because it used to be linked to on the k-3d page.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:1Z5xStdhA9w:www.k-3d.com/k3d/install.shtml+k-3d+free+help+uncomfortable&hl=en

I didn't read enough to see if povray satisfied the DFSG or anything like that...

Now the k-3d guys advise people to try aqsis. http://www.aqsis.com/. It just was released under the gpl last april.

[paulb]

I use POV-Ray. I like just typing in the 3-D model as opposed to using an annoying other program. It makes me feel 1337 :D.